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A former Ohio college professor, found not guilty of rape and kidnapping, has sued the
university that fired him, the police and six media outlets, saying the matter “defamed and
destroyed” his personal and professional life.

Hollant “Max” Adrien, 53, filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit on Tuesday seeking $50 million
from Springfield police, and $110 million combined from two newspapers and four TV stations.

He also sued Wittenberg University, seeking to be reinstated and awarded $2 million. In lieu of
reinstatement, Adrien seeks $10 million from the university.

Adrien accuses the police department of maliciously arresting him in October 2012 and the
university of improperly firing him two months before his trial, during which he was found not
guilty.

Police arrested Adrien on Oct. 23 last year, saying they had connected him to three sexual
assaults involving young men in Springfield.

As Adrien awaited trial, prosecutors dropped charges stemming from two of the cases — one
because Adrien wasn’t living in Ohio at the time of the 2010 assault and the other over credibility
issues involving the young man, who admitted lying to police about part of his story, records
show.

Wittenberg, where Adrien had worked as a French professor for about a year, fired him on Dec.
10, 2012, ahead of his February trial stemming from the last accusation, an alleged August 2012
rape and kidnapping of a 19-year-old developmentally disabled man.

The teen told police that a man had approached him in a car as he was walking and threatened to
shoot him before driving the teen to a park and raping him. Police said the teen identified Adrien
in a lineup.

Adrien testified that he had consensual sex with the man in a car. He said he didn’t realize the
young man was developmentally disabled, saying he thought the teen “just talked funny.”

In finding Adrien not guilty, Clark County Judge Douglas Rastatter said the evidence and
testimony in the case weren’t convincing.

In his lawsuit, Adrien says the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services found he was fired
for unjust cause. A department spokesman said on Friday that he was not allowed to confirm
that.

In addition to the financial awards, Adrien wants a public letter of apology from Springfield
police, accusing the department of causing “immeasurable destruction, unjust pain and suffering,”
and “using and abusing their authority and the law to ensnare and defame me,” according to the
lawsuit.

Also in the lawsuit, Adrien accuses the university’s staff of violating its own policies in
firing him before his trial and of treating him differently based on his race, sexual orientation
and national origin; Adrien was born in Haiti and is gay and black.